Talk:Policy

Problems
This page will always have trouble. It is too difficult and really will serve no learning purpose to speak of policy generally. There are two main types of policy. Business policy which (and I believe incorrectly) is sometimes called business strategy, and there is public policy which is what the government creates and enforces. Unless these two are distinguished with their own separate pages this page will not develop.Henryjoseph (talk) 20:00, 17 May 2008 (UTC)henryjoseph See also:
 * Policies_and_guidelines
 * Category:Wikipedia_semi-policy
 * I agree there are problems with the scope of this article, I'm intending to start a WikiProject:Policy (draft proposal) to deal with broadening and deepening the policy article and all articles related to it. Those who are interested to join in let me know! Bmekel (talk) 22:24, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * A thought, yes the article is broad, however, business and government policy are interdependent. To silo business and government policy discussion can gloss over this interaction.  Perhaps, the existing article should stay at a systemic level and acknowledge that there points of divergence that will be treated in additional, focused articles on "unique" aspects of each. Xcr2000 (talk) 16:18, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I affirm the above comment. It is important to remember that public and private policy, while distinct, incorporate similar models and analyses of human behavior. Policy as a broad topic is more than deserving of an independent article. Doughbo (talk) 19:25, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Not quiet there yet . 47.145.107.16 (talk) 05:51, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Pleonasm
Different alternatives is a pleonasm. Alternatives is enough.

-- 193.98.108.238 (talk) 14:33, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Citation Needed
I think there should be a citation in the Policy Cycle part. One may like to know where it was took from.

--Bruteacher 16:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Should this be a disambiguation page? --InShaneee 03:44, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree: this should be a disambiguation page! StuFifeScotland 14:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Disagree. This is in the main namespace - however, I'm putting a little note at the top, which is the usual way of disambiguating pages that have very few alternate aritcles attached to the name in question (in this case "policy"). Fresheneesz 20:04, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Is an insurance "policy" an alternative case of the main definition? I think not. It's a contract. StuFifeScotland 22:02, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

What about...
Privacy policy?


 * I think it works as a specific example of a policy that people are likely to be familiar with, but since it's a subspecialization of policy, probably shouldn't be discussed here. Gokmop 17:50, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The history of illegal policy lotteries

Link to wikipedia's policies
My edit to add a link to Wikipedia's policies was reverted - but I changed it back since people might be looking for wikipedia's policies if they come here. Italic links at the top of the page are one of two disambiguation techniques - the other being a disabiguation page. So if you want to remove that linke, make a disambig page and link there - I don't think thats more efficient. Fresheneesz 19:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * If you want examples of other pages that do this, look at Guideline and Delete. Fresheneesz 20:03, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The policy tag was removed again. I came here once again looking for an easy link to a page in the Wikipedia: namespace. Avoiding self references is not meant to apply to disambig tags. Fresheneesz 19:05, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Looking at WP:ASR, I notice that it advises not *talking* about wikipedia in articles. Disambig tags shouldn't apply to that - and the page never mentions that those types of references aren't good. Fresheneesz 19:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Why I made certain edits...
Okay -- it might have seemed trivial, but there were a few minor edits that I felt were necessary. If someone has any problem, for instance, with changing "Social poo" to "Social policies," then by all means, change it back. I was under the impression that this was a mistake on the part of the person who wrote it. I've never in my life heard of a social poo (unless you are talking about coarse slang).

Also, some of the syntax in earlier paragraphs needed to be cleaned up a bit. I have worked as a technical writer, and as such, some of the language made me shudder. Again, if I made anything LESS clear, then suggest your own changes. However, upon rereading my own text, I can better understand the concepts therein.

Thank you.

- Sammy James


 * I think you've done an excellent job. The language is much sweeter now. However, I still feel disambiguation is needed as the various uses of the word policy do not sit together logically. I'll happily eat my words if someone comes up with phraseology that proves me wrong. StuFifeScotland 12:11, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Cool! Thanks for the positive feedback. It is tough to swallow someone editing your text. Believe me -- I know! I used to be a technical writer for Kurzweil and Cakewalk, and I hated it (sometimes) when engineers would trample all over my stuff.


 * I'm not sure whether this should be a disambiguation page. I'm inclined to say that maybe there should be a disambiguation page somewhere, although I feel that some of the content on this page is useful per se. The way that this page is constructed right now almost makes me feel as though it is like a Wiktionary entry, rather than being encyclopedic enough to give people a ton of information.


 * At any rate, there is NO WAY that I am going to go out on a big limb and root for disambiguation! I'm happy to sit back and let someone else take care of this one. I'll happily edit anything that ends up getting distributed to other pages though! (Watch out -- I've got a computer keyboard!!!)


 * Anyway, thanks again. Take care!

- Sammy James

Another thoughtful suggestion...
I'm wondering if anyone has any information on White House policies. That is what originally brought me to this topic, looking for information about whether George W. Bush actually has the legal right to enact policies that "no one can touch," so-to-speak.

If anyone has more information on this, maybe you could start a new Wiki topic, and link to it from this page. It is only a thought (and if someone has information on where to find this already in Wikipedia, by all means -- share it with us).

Thanks.

- Sammy James

Taxonomy of policies
I think this article needs some real work. There is a "types of policy" section, and in the "miscellaneous policies" section, there is another breakdown of policies.

It could be that there are two valid ways of categorizing policies. If so, we should revise to bring them both up to the same level. Right now, it seems like the article is confused about which way it wants to categorize various types of policies.

Any thoughts on how this is best changed? I'll do the work, I just didn't want to reengineer the whole article without soliciting input. --- Gokmop 22:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC) I'm not sure, but I agree with you. --Mack540 21:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

This article tries very hard to wrestle with the idea of policy. It is struggling a bit because the idea itself is very slippery. I agree that the article could be strengthened. The biggest issue that doesn't come across as clearly as it might is whether policy is necessarily a product of 'rational' deliberation and (in)action. Stagist models say yes, many others (not just postmodernists - also eg incrementalism) say no. There are some other key related concepts that should probably be covered - especially the idea of 'symbolic policy'. Happy to help in developing things further. ShodanAdam (talk) 19:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

STRATEGY AND POLICY
How does policy relate to strategy? It will be useful to include within the entry on policy an explanation of how policy relates to strategy. My limited experience is that business organizations tend to use the term "strategy" and public sector organizations "policy," except in the back office functions. The key question is which is prime? Does strategy determine policy, or vice-versa? NOKESS 17:19, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Policy is viewed differently in business than in government. In business as well as other disciplines according to James Brian Quinn "A strategy is the pattern or plan that integrates an organization's major goals, policies, and action sequences into a cohesive whole". Continuing with Quinn "policies are the rules or guidelines that express limits within which action should occur." In this sense strategy is how objectives get accomplished. Policy is the limitations or guides of the how.

Let us keep a distinction here and not force this definition on government where a strategy could be, to paraphrase Mintzberg, "a plan, ploy, pattern, position, and/or perspective" to accomplish or defeat a policy. Here the outcome of the policy implementation process (which is not called a strategy) is a policy. Henryjoseph (talk) 16:33, 17 May 2008 (UTC)henryjoseph

Public Policy
Why does public policy redirect here? Public policy is a long-established academic discipline, with public policy schools at dozens of universities and dozens of think tanks that study public policy in the US and around the world. This entry doesn't do a good job of discussing public policy. Binarybits (talk) 05:09, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

References and citations from advocacy sites
Having seen a discussion about the use of these sites in the Talk:Gun politics page I am surprised that there is no guideline or policy for referring to advocacy sites. In my view they can be useful, but care needs to be taken as the information may be biased. Also the balance of the article needs to be considered, so in a controversial area advocacy sites for both points of view should be used in balance. Maybe they should be marked as advocacy sites in the reference? Any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Q Chris (talk • contribs) 09:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Typology
I hope this where one's comments are to go and others will see them and critique my input.

There is no definition or explanation per se of typology. The list of Distributive, Regulatory, and Constituent is missing Redistributive. Lowi refers to these as arenas. Henryjoseph (talk) 15:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC)henryjoseph

ang policy ay tumutukoy sa isang pribadong batas na na uukol sa tamang paglinang ng suliranin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.60.243.83 (talk) 03:13, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Policy vs. Law
It would be interesting if relevant material could be added somewhere about the increasing tensions between policy and law in the modern world. The modern State has become so complex that it longer bothers to edict laws on complex issues, but instead it makes decisions and adopts policies without necessarily considering them to have a permanent value. Policies tend to evolve quickly because they are perceived as mere social conventions or unwritten rules. There is also less of a need to inform the public about what the actual policies are, instead of formal laws that are clearly written and easily accessible. Constitutional philosophy has largely contributed to this pattern, whereas policies are usually required to be constitutional instead of lawful. ADM (talk) 04:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Inconsistent use of "protocol" in defining "policy"
The first sentence on this page presents “protocol” as a synonym for “policy”. The second sentence identifies protocol as an implementation word, which differs from the intent focus of policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rwilkin (talk • contribs) 04:24, 6 September 2014 (UTC) I've now removed the apparently incorrect use of “protocol” in the first sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rwilkin (talk • contribs) 04:47, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

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